About Last Night

Another of the more recent movies that I had the chance to record from the free preview of the Showtime channels is About Last Night.... It's going to be on again, tomorrow (Oct. 11) at 4:00 PM on Flix, so I watched it to do the obligatory review on here.

Rob Lowe plays Danny, who works for a restaurant wholesale supplier together with his best friend Bernie (Jim Belushi). Now, any objective person ought to see right away that Bernie is a bit of a dick. Well, a lot of a dick. He's clearly making up BS about his sexual prowess and, as the movie goes on, comes across as really selfish and deliberately trying to sabotage his best friend. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Danny and Bernie are also on the softball team sponsored by their favorite watering hole. Among the spectators at one of their games in one of the big Chicago-area parks are Debbie (Demi Moore) and her best friend and roommate Joan (Elizabeth Perkins). After Danny's team wins the game, everybody goes back to the bar to celebrate, Danny and Bernie going independently from Debbie and Joan. But you know that Debbie and Joan are going to meet Danny and Bernie. Further, Danny and Debbie are going to wind up together.

Danny and Debbie go back to his apartment, and wouldn't you know it, but the two make love on their very first night together. Not that Debbie is so sure that she should have done it. But she goes home and finds that Joan has an extremely drunk man in her bed while she took the couch for the night.

Danny finds out that Debbie works as a designer in an ad agency, and so goes to call her about the possibility of going out on another date together. And wouldn't you know it, but Debbie has found out about Danny's job and was just about to call him at the very same time he called! So they go out on another date together, which is really just an excuse to have more sex.

After several more intense sex sessions, Danny and Debbie decide that perhaps they should move in together. And this is where the relationship really starts having problems. Bernie has been a dick every time Danny talks about the relationship with Debbie, almost as though Bernie is trying to sabotage the relationship because he's incapable of having a real relationship. But now Joan starts acting badly. She's always seen Debbie as her best friend, and feels abandoned by Joan. Not only that, but she's the one person who really sees through Bernie's BS.

There are a lot more complications, mostly due to both Danny and Debbie's inabilities to see the problems that their best firends are causing, along with their lack of desire to step back and take a breath before figuring out what to do next. If they could just stop and have an intelligent conversation about how they want their relationship to go rather than just the sex and volatile arguments, a whole lot of heartache could have been avoided.

I think it's because of the frustrating character foibles that I wound up not liking About Last Night as much as another 80s movie I was thinking of as I was watching it, that being When Harry Met Sally. There's a lot of potential here, but there are so many times where I just wanted to take the characters and shake some sense into them, especially Belushi's character.

So while there's a fair bit to recommend about About Last Night..., be warned that it could have been a lot better.